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Saturday, February 9, 2013

When crafty isn't cool

Since Valentines day is next week, things around my house lately have involved lots of red, pink and heart shapes...exhibit A:

the kids got me up early this morning for pancakes and I couldn't resist making some pink hearts! We also spelled out words but they ate them before I could get any pictures!

It hasn't completely been all love here in the Updegraff household lately. I've been having kind of a tough time with my youngest...I'm not naive enough to think that this is a phase as much as it is warning signs of what is to come in her teenage years. There were nights of crying (on both of our ends) but I think I have learned a very valuable lesson:

I am who I am and she is who she is.

I can't force her to be like me or to like what I like

and in turn I can't be disappointed in her for being who she is.

I know it sounds to cliche but it hit me like a ton of bricks when my 9 year old is crying as she is yelling at me, "you don't love me for who I am and you only want to change me because I'm not what you want me to be!" Yep, that's what she said and I have never felt so low in my entire life. It was a silly argument over me wanting her to dress more girly. You see, she is a tom-boy to the nth degree. At first I thought it was cute but I was getting tired of my only girl not wanting to dress like a girl...especially because I keep filling her closet with expensive girly clothes!!! So I have been trying really hard to watch my tongue and compliment her on what she likes. I even took her out to the mall on our Mommy-Daughter date night to the mall to pick out an outfit all on her own without any input from me. She did pretty good...of course it was pants and a t-shirt but I think she picked out a pastel color shirt so I would approve.

Fast forward to this week. I was so excited about telling Bella all of the ideas I had for her classmates for Valentines Day. I had been pinning ideas for months!!! She listened to all of my ideas but I could tell I hadn't won her over. I asked her what was wrong and she said that for once she wanted to be like all of the other kids and just give normal valentines out. Nothing crafty, nothing different, just the normal 1.99 valentines. Just kill me now. But I remembered about my promise to not push my likes on her and told her that she could pick out anything she wanted. So off to Hobby Lobby we went. I did my best to keep my mouth shut, I really did....but I found myself trying to convince her to crafty-it-up a bit. I think we did ok as a compromise:

She got her 1.99 valentines (Phineus & Ferb) and she even picked out paper airplanes & a lolipop so there would be a little more to her valentine

My contribution was to convince her she needed these cute bags to put everything into.

Sometimes I get so caught up in making things look perfect (darn you pinterest) that I take the fun out of things for her. Bella is one of the most creative and imaginative people I know but I have to remind myself that she has to express herself her own way and not mine. It's a hard lesson and one I hope doesn't lead to purple hair and piercings.

Here was last weeks ProjectLife 365:
and I am so glad that so many of my friends are doing this!!! It has been so much fun to follow you guys on Instagram!

1. GROW- finally my roses are starting to bloom
2. YOU TODAY- it was so hard to take a self portrait, I felt completely ridiculous
3. REPETITION- I got to hold this cool lizard at a friends house and his pattern was blowing my mind!
4. BEDSIDE- my cat, Finn stares at me all night, freaks me out
5. DAILY LIFE- I am on a diet, trying to fit into my clothes for Paris...fruit, protein and veggies for me
6. ARRANGEMENT- thinking about how they placed all of those beads just perfectly